Happy Saba Saba?

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Today was Saba Saba . Saba Saba translates as "Seven Seven," saba being the Kiswahili word for seven. Saba Saba (July 7th, get it?) is a national holiday here in Tanzania that celebrates...farmers? Something like that. All I know is that it meant that we had no class today. Barak (the program director here in Mwanza) was kind enough to tell us that Saba Saba is really just a big market for tractor parts. But when we went to the market today (a few of us, at least) we did not see any tractor parts but did see a lot of fruit and vegetables. Obviously, Pulchery needed to take some home. So she bought some sugarcane (Ashley Yeager did as well). We got in the daladala with two huge stalks of sugarcane. We walked around the center of Mwanza with two huge stalks of sugarcane. In short, we attracted slightly more attention than usual.

Anyway, when we got back, I was able to relax for a long time. And by relax, I mean do research for my 5-7 page paper on ecology. I finally narrowed down my topic to: "How USAID's policies in East Africa may or may not be affecting the health and sustainability of Lake Victoria." Surprisingly enough, I found a lot of information about this. I think that the argument will run - (1) The US funds intensive agriculture throughout the region to increase incomes and (2) the US funds efforts to protect the lake. Put simply, the US likes to destroy the lake and then fix it.

A funny email came from Emily today. It was in French. My mind does not do French right now. So my cheeky response read as follows: "Kwa sababu uliniandikia kwa Kifaransa, nitakuandikia kwa Kiswahili. Umefurahi? Siifikiri. Ndiyo, mimi ni mtu mbaya, lakini ninapenda sana watu hawasipovifahamu vitu ninavyosema/ninavyoandika." I then switched into French but kept throwing in Swahili words, especially "hapa" (here) and "ndege" (bird/airplane). In my mind, all these languages are the same.

And finally, in other news, I still have a sunburn on my right shoulder and it is rather painful to sleep on that side. If only it would get better. Back to class tomorrow. I think we will be going to the fish market tomorrow morning again. I will see what other things I see and maybe I will be allowed to take some pictures. We shall see.

OK, so this is the real finally. I don't want to innundate inboxes with emails about new blog entries, so sorry if I start writing every day. It's just that the city really is very boring and it gets dark early. Writing on the blog distracts me very well from my work. I will try to spread out updates from now on.

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Comments

[Toryyy]

hahahhaha:
this is a great post i love it. "attracted slightly more attention than usual" loll relax = research? HA mixing languages? lol should i start digging my rusty spanish out of the cobwebs of my mind just to confuse you back? :P (actually, confession: french is awesome and i wish i could learn it. but i'm afraid it's getting late and i might as well at least hold onto spanish so all those years including crazy AP class don't go to waste...) aww sunburn...it has been "isolated" or "scattered" thunderstorms ("whatever" that really means) in jersey for what feels like forever now and i want some beach weather to roll around...then i can work on my own sunburn. err..tan. :D yay for blogging distraction! haha. i want to try to work on mine more, make it substantial lol. (see fb) not that anyone receives emails about posts from me haha...